Diaries

There's been plenty said on just how bad the third down defense has been, and I thought I'd chronicle that for you. For starters, our NCAA rank is currently #66 out of 120 FBS teams when it comes to overall defensive 3rd down conversion percentage (how often the opposing offense succeeds). We are listed at 38.78% with 38 conversions in 98 attempts.

From going over box scores, I found only 97, so note that discrepancy now. I'm not worried about one missing right now. Also worth noting, I used ESPN's box scores, not Brian's UFRs. So that may cause discrepancy if you go back and check plays there.

I'm not going to offer much more than interesting stats in this. I'll let you guys draw your own conclusions and leave them in the comments. Any thoughts or explanations are welcome.

So let's take a look at the different third down plays the defense has gone up against by yardage:

Yards To Go

Conversions

Attempts

Percentage

1

8

13

61.54%

2

3

10

30.00%

3

4

9

44.44%

4

2

5

40.00%

5

3

12

25.00%

6

8

12

66.67%

7

2

2

100.00%

8

2

8

25.00%

10

3

12

25.00%

11

0

3

0.00%

12

1

1

100.00%

13

0

1

0.00%

15

0

3

0.00%

16

0

1

0.00%

18

1

1

100.00%

19

0

1

0.00%

23

0

2

0.00%

24

1

1

100.00%

TOTAL

38

97

39.18%

There's obviously a couple outliers out there. The 3rd and 18/24 plays against MSU and Iowa respectively definitely throw a wrench in the numbers. The number that is the most disturbing, though, has to the 3rd and 6 metric. Let's take a slightly closer look at that:

Curl short of the two guys we have deep on that side. Warren backed off presnap.

IOWA

3

6

pass

33

Pumpfake by Stanzi to a laid out Stross on a fly-ish route.

Other than that pick and the four yard TFL against EMU by the scrubs, that's horrid. It doesn't seem to be laid squarely on blitzing too many, umbrella coverage, or anything in particular.

When you throw in those really long conversions, it looks pretty ugly. So what do you have to compare these numbers to? I've got two things. Brian did some extensive DIY Third Down Efficiency studies during the first few years of his blog, something he hopes to return to in the future, IIRC. There you can see that the normal conversion rate on a 3rd and 1 is ~68% (2007 statistics I believe). Michigan is outdoing that by about 7% on defense.

As you move down that trend line, however, you can see Michigan starts to approximate that line really quickly, then the extremely long conversions start to skew the results.

Also, we can look at how Michigan has done against opposing defenses.

Yards To Go

Conversions

Attempts

Percentages

1

7

8

87.50%

2

6

9

66.67%

3

4

8

50.00%

4

5

7

71.43%

5

1

6

16.67%

6

1

3

33.33%

7

2

4

50.00%

8

3

7

42.86%

9

2

5

40.00%

10

1

7

14.29%

11

1

6

16.67%

12

1

4

25.00%

13

0

3

0.00%

14

0

2

0.00%

15

0

3

0.00%

16

0

1

0.00%

18

0

1

0.00%

21

0

1

0.00%

TOTAL

34

85

40.00%

As you can see, Michigan is doing much more poorly on offense when it comes to converting on third down. That said, we're also much better on converting on short yardage. When we get within 4 yards, we've got a very high percentage chance of converting.

Going back to the D for a minute, one of the other problems I'm noticing is how much worse we are on 1st and 2nd down. I'm not sure of too many metrics to gauge this, so I thought about a way to get a decent metric on this. While the standard 3 yards per play average will be fairly successful, it's probably not the best way to describe how successful you are. I decided to go with an arbitrary metric of half the distance needed instead. So, for example, if it's 1st and 10, 5 yards would be considered a successful pick up. So on a 2nd and 5, a 2.5 yard pick up would leave you with 3rd and 2 or 3. I would argue if you're able to do this, you'd probably be slightly more successful than just averaging three yards per snap.

I'll admit this metric is just my opinion, and I welcome ideas for a better way to measure success on 1st and 2nd down.

So with my metric in mind, here's the type of stats I'm seeing.

1st Down

2nd Down

Attempts

Successful

Attempts

Successful

Passing

75

36

71

37

Rushing

102

38

67

38

Sacks

4

-

2

-

Total

181

74

140

75

While Michigan does a decent job of stopping a team on 1st down, about 40.9%, second downs, Michigan is quite a bit worse on second down, around 53.8%. This is understandable as you generally need less yardage on 2nd down while still getting about the same number of yards. To explain, Michigan averages a 1st and 10.38 and gives up an average of 5.807 yards. Meanwhile, one second down, they average 2nd and 8.41 and give up an average of 5.629. The opposing team gains between 5-6 yards per play [ed. -cringe] on both first and second downs, while in my metric, they should need less.

I guess, if anything is good news, on third down, we face an average of 3rd and 6.56 and hold an average of 5.18 yards per play, over half a yard less per play than 1st or 2nd down.

I'll probably be playing with these stats a bit more in the next few days. Unfortunately, most of my stats don't involve personnel, so that complicates things.

I probably should have posted this earlier than now to maintain relevance, but after the drive last night, arriving home at 530am, sleeping until 2pm, and the time it took to recover emotionally and physically, here we are. Better late than never.

Yesterday was my first time in Iowa City, and now that I have been to 6 of the 11 Big Ten stadiums (and also Notre Dame) for Michigan games, I thought I would throw out my thoughts from the experience, including some comparisons and game observations.

Note: My rankings below are based purely on my opinion and obviously influenced by what my experiences were at each individual campus. Also, in some instances it was very hard to separate 2 or 3 schools. Basically what I'm trying to say is that I don't want this post to piss anyone off.

University of Iowa Campus:I don't know about you guys, but I love college campuses. Every time I get a chance to visit a school, I make a point to get a feel for the campus. I am obviously biased, but the University of Michigan has the best campus I have ever been to (which is a lot more than the the seven mentioned above). Ann Arbor is the perfect size college town, and the campus itself seamlessly blends right into it. My view on Iowa's campus is that it was very nice, but mostly unspectacular. The town of Iowa City really is in the middle of nowhere, with Cedar Rapids being the biggest thing nearby. And all of the stereotypical jokes about corn, tractors, etc that are associated with Iowa are partially true from what I saw. The campus itself was pretty nice with a lot of the brick and stone buildings that I like and a riverside location. Their Union has nothing on Michigan's but thats the case almost everywhere. Overall ranking amongst Big Ten + ND places I been: Michigan, Wisconsin, ND, Iowa, OSU, Northwestern, MSU.

Pre-game Atmosphere / Tailgating SceneI've got to be pretty honest here and say that considering it was a night game with Iowa being ranked so high, I was a little disappointed with this part of the Iowa experience. Sure there were a ton of people, with a large number of parking areas that were completely packed, but other than that I felt it was business as usual. Maybe I was expecting too much, but to me it seemed like it easily could have been just an average day game from what I observed. Overall ranking amongst Big Ten + ND places I've been: Wisconsin, OSU, MSU, Iowa, Michigan, ND, Northwestern.

Game AtmosphereKinnick Stadium has a reputation for being one of the tougher places to play in the Big Ten, and again I have to say that I was a little disappointed considering where my expectations were. The "blackout" was excellent. The student section was there early, and they were loud. And the stadium itself is aesthetically very nice, if not for it being fairly small. Don't get me wrong, the place got LOUD at times, especially early. But as the game wore on, the crowd really only got up at obviously important moments. I am sure the freezing temperatures and other things played a role in this. But overall, OSU and even Wisconsin seemed to more consistently loud. And I was sitting in the 6th row from the field, just opposite the student section. One thing I will say about Kinnick is that the crowd is extremely close to the players. In the endzone nearest me, the people in the front row seats actually had their feet on the playing surface. Courtside baby! Overall ranking amongst Big Ten + ND places I've been: OSU, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, ND, MSU, Northwestern.EDIT: One thing I left out was how terrible the loud-speaker music and other jumbotron things were. Absolutely terrible. At one point on the jumbotron, there was a cartoon video of four pick-up trucks racing that obviously ended with the black Iowa one winning. A promotion for corn growers or something like that. Also -1000 for the Iowa band playing the Monday Night Football song (not "Are You Ready for Some Football" but the other one). Thinking of this stuff just dropped Iowa down one spot on my list.

Iowa Fans (Treatment of Opposing Fans)Not sure how many of you are interested in this portion of my post, but I have to say that Iowa fans were definitely some of the more hospitable I have come in contact with. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy getting ribbed by opposing fans at away games, but some places definitely go too far on occasion (cough OSU cough). We had very little profanity thrown our way, and even the post-game trash talk was minimal. One issue I do have was the running the field thing that I know has already been brought up on this blog. Even the fans around me seemed to be celebrating the win as though they had just won the Big Ten. I just don't understand being that excited when your number 12 ranked team barely escapes at home against an unranked team that is extremely inexperienced. If the roles had been reversed, I would have let out a big WHEW and went back to my apartment feeling very lucky to still be undefeated. That was not the reaction I saw from Iowa fans. Overall ranking amongst Big Ten + ND places I've been (I'm leaving out Michigan here because I have never been to the Big House as an opposing fan obviously): Iowa, Northwestern, ND, Wisconsin, MSU, OSU.

Game ObservationsI'm not going to go into too much detail here, but despite the loss I am very encouraged about what I saw last night. In the moments after the game ended, part of me was very happy because the team played pretty well when they weren't making a monumental mistake. The other part of me was extremely disappointed because if we had not made as many monumental mistakes we would have won that game, sliding back into the top 20 and making a January bowl seem very likely.

For the first time since the Western Michigan game, I found myself really liking the way our defense looked at points in the game. Sure they allowed 30 points, but the offense gave them a short field at least twice and the TD that came after the 3rd and 24 conversion is credited to the coaches IMO (from my vantage point it looked like we went into three-man-rush death mode, but correct me if I am wrong).

Offensively, we definitely struggled at points. But our ability to consistently line up and push Iowa off the ball with the running game was what really got me excited. I also enjoyed being re-reminded of how important Brandon Minor is to our team. Watching the physicality of his running from the 6th row was incredible. I hope he can somehow stay healthy for the next 6 games.

Overall, a loss is still a loss. But going forward I feel really good about the rest of the season and the future. I think it's going to be a tough battle to make it to 7+ wins, but I think we can do it based on what I saw in Iowa City. For the first time this year, I feel that PSU and OSU are definitely winnable games. Hope some of this was helpful!

Last week, I argued that the State of Michigan's Union was strong. I watched the Iowa game on television in LA yesterday and found myself pissed off and annoyed in a way that was different from the MSU game last week. It reminded me of how I felt after last year's ND game -- a big win was in our sights, and we pissed it away because we couldn't hold onto the football. But I let 24 hours pass in order to clear my head, and have decided that my statement about our team's position remains true. I articulate the reasons why, and then close with a concern.

1. GERG is doing his job extremely well. At the time of his hiring, I questioned the wisdom of bringing in the former head coach of a losing program like Syracuse. I have since become a believer. The Michigan defensive line last night was absolutely terrific. I thought our linebacking was improved over MSU. Our corner play was, I thought, great. Obviously, the safety play was terrible, but when you have the always-hustling but not fast walk-on in Kovacs, and a disappearing Boubacar who is necessitating weekly personnel changes, what can you do? What really impresses me is the defense's ability to come on after an offensive turnover in the red zone and hold them to a field goal. One obvious point: our ineptitude on third and very long is more than a little weird. I don't think I've seen Michigan give up conversions on 3rd and 25 in consecutive games. Still and all -- the takeaway for me is that GERG is dramatically improving our defense and that they played well enough for us to win.

2. Our offensive line is also improving. First, hats off to Moosman, who has learned an entirely new position in just three weeks. I didn't see one errant snap. When I saw Iowa's defensive line eviscerate Penn State, I thought "Man are we screwed." I can't say enough about how well the O-Line set up the run game. If anything, I spent much of the game complaining that we weren't running more. Two of our scoring drives involved almost solely running -- and the first one (with Tate at the helm) involved a lot of I-formation and other non-spread sets. The O-Line got it done on the running front, and was passable in pass protection. Good job.

3. The team continues to show tremendous heart in hostile environments. I have never been to Kinnick, but I am told it is an Autzen-like place to play -- very devoted fans, who are loud and really come out for their team. To see this team, with two frosh QBs, a number of walk-ons, and a number of guys playing out of position, fight and fight and still have a chance to win notwitstanding all that went wrong was, for me, a key sign that Michigan is still Michigan. We never quit on you and we will fight to the end.

I think you can legitimately chalk this game up to turnovers (although you need to remember that we got a pick 6). If you view turnovers as something that (with respect to fumbles) is somewhat random and (with respect to picks) is part of Tate's continued learning process, this is one of the better ways to lose a game.

The takeaway -- this team is better than we hoped, and has a fighting spirit that impresses each week. I love this team. For my money, if we play that game ten times, we win 4 or 5 of them. If we play it at home, I think we win 6. The Vegas line was clearly way off.

A closing concern. From my vantage point, it has become faddish on Mgoblog to support Rodriguez no matter what. Rodriguez critique is typically roundly condemned. So I will start with my traditional caveats in the hopes of staving off some of the typical pushback: I am a supporter and continue to believe that we were very lucky to luck into a coach this good.

That being said, I have been watching Rodriguez closely and am not impressed with his in game demeanor. The guy rips into players virtually every time they come off the field. He was in Forcier's face 3 or 4 times. You have this nagging sense that Rodriguez's brain is wired to say to himself "Given that I am offensive genius, when things don't work out, it must be someone else's fault." Ripping Tate a new one repeatedly isn't being a coach -- it's being a brat. Saying "Tate needs to get that fixed" as you run off the field at the end of the first half when you are referring to a fluke slip of the hand is just petty. And allowing your fit of pique to lead you to take the ball away from a guy who has led three stunning fourth quarter comebacks is to allow emotion to control over reason. Through the entire first half, I was begging Rodriguez to run more. I really questioned the playcalling -- I think you have to dial it back a bit on the road and try to manage the game more. And no, I am not surprised that we turn the ball over a lot on the road when we have a super-complex offense that requires every player on the team to spend the last ten seconds of the pre-play NOT thinking about what they are going to do, but rather looking over at Rodriguez as he "makes adjustments" to "what he is seeing in the defense." Lloyd and Bo weren't ones to spare the lash -- but they did it with purpose in specific situations where it was merited. They didn't do it as a habit to vent stress. Hell, Bo was too busy shredding the refs to divert precious time to shredding his own players. I am not yet seeing an on-field leader in Rodriguez. An offensive coordinator and a brilliant one? Absolutely. A head coach? My jury is still out.

This is a simple-man's look at the remaining portion of the schedule to provide some stats and insight about where the team might end up. Stats come from espn.com (http://espn.go.com/ncf/conference?confId=5) and sometimes I use them in my predictions and sometimes I don't.

Note: Some of the Stats have not been fully updated on ESPN.com

Note II: I know that the stat boxes cut and paste funny, I couldn't remedy this in the short amount of time I had before my wife told me to give it up (yes, I'm whipped)

Update Note III: (haha, I snuck away while my wife was giving the daughter a bath!). I am providing this to show that, despite all of the nay-sayers out there, Michigan has a solid chance at finishing the season with a great record (based on actual, prior performance based statistics from its future opponents). At the beginning of the season telling me that we would be 4-2 going into Delaware state would have made me very happy.

Vs. Delaware State

Win/Loss:

Conf.Ovr.PFPAHomeAway

DSU

1-2

1-3

57

63

0-1

1-2

In comparing this to Michigan’s, Delaware state seems to have an ineptitude at moving the ball.From the limited stats it appears Delaware State may have a ball hawking defense but if they cannot move the ball on offense, two defensive touchdowns will not carry the day.

Penn State can move the ball.They can also do so efficiently, balancing their passing and rushing attack.Michigan, though, hasn’t had too much problem defending against balanced attacks (i.e. Iowa, MSU) but Michigan has had issues with teams that know how to exploit their weaknesses (i.e. Iowa, MSU).This is a home game, giving a slight edge to MI, but Penn State is rock-solid when it comes to getting pressure on the QB.

Illinois is struggling this year.They cannot seem to get much together and with the Juice Williams debacle at QB, Zook may have lost this season and lost this team.Defensively IL has not put much up by way of numbers and Michigan will take advantage of it with its Tate the Great attack.Michigan, going 1-3 so far in conference play has a chip on its shoulder (as well as a memory of what happened last year to us at home):

Much like the Purdue game for MI, Wisconsin will have a memory of what happened to them last year at the big house.Wisconsin will definitely have some motivation coming into this game.Wisconsin has also looked pretty solid up to this point (noting that absent errant QB throws and poor special teams play, they may have given the buckeyes more of a run for their money).However, by this point Michigan should be clicking on all cylinders again and Tate will have much more experience behind him from the prior games.At this point the offensive match-up favors Wisconsin in yardage but Michigan in defense.Going into OSU next week, Michigan may be thinking about the sweater vests and Bielema may be coaching for his job again:

I hate to even have to look at this numbers without bias.OSU was dreadful against USC and only has inflated its numbers based on beating up the likes of Toledo and Illinois (granted we got WMU and EMU, but it’s different…it’s Michigan!).No doubt OSU will be pumped for this game as they will probably be playing for national respect and a chance at the BCS (assuming that they knock off the Hawkeyes).Michigan will want to prove it can beat OSU and Michigan will deploy an aresenal of looks to do so.Plus, the d-line is going to have a target on Boren’s chest.Michigan is at home, in front of 110,001 and finally gets the monkey off of its back.

So something I thought would turn into a weekly thing turned be a "whenever I get into an argument with my friends" thing. Sorry if I led you on, but alas, time to get to the game.

Disclaimer: I am a very realistic Michigan fan. We are far from 3-9.

My friends and I disagreed about a few things after the Western game and that's what prompted me to create this account and start ranting. Anyways, this week a big argument after the end of the game was the decision to leave Robinson in for the final drive with about 90 seconds left.

My opponents argue that Forcier should have been in the game at that point because of the fact that he is "our starting quarterback" and the outcomes from the recent games. They claim that we would have had a better chance of winning the game with Forcier in the game at that point than with Robinson.

I am obviously in disagreement with this perspective because of the mere fact that I am sitting here writing this. But I will lay my arguments out in a clear and honest manner.

1) THIS week is not LAST week or weeks 1, 2, 3, or 4 either. Just because Tate has managed to get it done the past few weeks does not mean he is guaranteed at getting it done this week. It was evident throughout tonight's game that this week's version of Forcier was not the super freshman he's been in the first few games. Yes, Forcier has had a low completion percentage before (actually 3 times in weeks 3-5: 53.8, 52.4, 53.1), but in those games there were far more drops from the receivers than there were tonight. Heck, the receivers didn't even have many opportunities to commit drops. Tate overthrew his open receivers on more than one occasion tonight. Maybe his shoulder was sore, but a completion percentage of 42.1 just won't get it done on the road in the Big 10.

2) Denard SHOULD have been in the game for the last drive. Denard drove Michigan down for a touchdown drive midway through the final frame. Tate was not responsible for a touchdown tonight. Yes, he did manage Michigan down the field for both of Minor's touchdown runs, but 8 completions out of 19 attempts is far from being a "quarterback that manages the game." Denard was more than competent in the second to last drive to bring us to within two. When asked to throw, he delivered the ball on the mark and on time (granted they were only 5-7 yard curls and outs). On the final offensive possession for Michigan, Denard just made a bad read and didn't realize this was COLLEGE football. He had a wide open receiver underneath (5-7 yard gain to give us a first down with 45 seconds on the clock and realistically about 25 yards from a field goal attempt to win the game (Michigan was on the 38 yard line, 7 yard gain puts us at the 45 with maybe three or four shots to get anywhere from 20-40 yards). To sum it all up, Denard deserved a shot at winning a game. They are both freshmen quarterbacks and both were promised an equal opportunity at the job. Denard has a right at trying to get some of that same glory Forcier has received.

3) Rodriguez made the right call. Not his fault his quarterback made the wrong read. He had to find out if Denard has that "it" factor everyone talks about. I really think Denard gives you a better shot at winning that game than a 70% Forcier who had his confidence rattled. People seem to forget we only needed a field goal. I think Denard's running ability (and accuracy on short 5-7 yard routes) gave us a better shot. Get off our coach's back; do you want 3-9 again?

Al in all, Michigan played a sloppy hard-fought game. 5 turnovers is way too many and to actually have a shot at winning the game was pretty much all you could ask for. Hopefully we shore up our problems in the defensive secondary and heal up over the next two weeks. Let's make sure Delaware St. 2009 doesn't become Toldeo 2008. It might seem like a meaningless game, but get out there and support.

The board is about to explode with frustration, but let's keep it real. It was a road game, at night, against an undefeated opponent. Yes there're a lot of things to be frustrated over, but there are also a lot of things to be happy about. Let's try to keep it balanced and keep some perspective.

Denard?!? Why? It was "Tate Time"! Why wasn't Tate in the game during Tate Time? Because he was playing like crap on the previous drives he had. Because RR is looking at the longview and has to teach his Freshman QB's to do it the right way. Because he threw an interception in OT last week. Who's to say he wouldn't have done exactly the same thing Denard did? If Tate had been in and thrown a game killing INT two weeks in a row, the same people on here screaming for tate now would have been screaming for denard. Also Denard had just led a successful TD drive under pressure. (personally I was worried we would run out of time, more than we would throw an INT)

OMG TURNOVERS!! Yeah, that kind of sucked. But Iowa is actually really good at forcing turnovers, so it's not that unexpected. Instead of freaking out about the turnovers, realize that even being -4, we still managed to stay within 2 points of a pretty darn good team. Yes it's frustrating, but it also shows that our players have good resilience to come back from those kind of emotional swings. Last year we woulda folded like superman on laundry day. We're only one year removed from a 3-9 year, you can't expect us to be world beaters just yet. We're young, We're learning, and we're going to get better.

Why does the O-Line suck??? Uhm, no. No. It just played an awesome game against a pretty awesome D-line. Iowa's D-line was twisting and stunting all night, and the line gave our QB's enough time to win.

Why can't we cover the TE? That guy meowmeowyaki, (or whatever his name is) is an all Big Ten guy. On his first TD he made an awesome fake block and held it for a long time before leaking out. He gave a great false key to our D guy who was in man coverage. It was a brilliantly designed play. Almost like a screen. And he's been out of the lineup for a few games, so the team didn't get to study much recent film on him. He also catches like 10 balls a game or something ridiculous like that. On his second TD, he was the TE on the other side of the formation where they had been running for like 15 straight plays. we had to sell out on the run just to stop the bleeding. He came all the way across on the bootleg and just got lost. It happens. If we could run to one side for 15 straight plays and then do playaction off of that, it would be deadly too. In fact it was back in the days of Griese to Tuman.

Okay? So can we all relax a little? Here's some things to be happy about.

Zoltan is still awesome. I'd say he won his matchup of All-American punters tonight. He was booming 60 yarders all night. I was afraid he was going to out kick the coverage, but we managed to get the tackles.

Brandom Graham! I think he had 3 sacks and was a beast in most other respects. He had two bad plays (roughing the kicker, and missing stanzi on a rollout) but neither one of them had an impact on the game. (because of mathews fumble, and the D stopped stanzi short of the 1st down anyway)

Troy! Seemed to be an upgrade at the corner position. (but yeah, mike williams had a couple of breakdowns)

Brandon Minor. I don't think he's really healthy yet, but he's a workhorse. He basically carried the whole team on his 2nd TD drive.

Odoms. Had one drop but is turning into an excellent possession receiver.

O-line. It's coming together. There was a time when we kept running to the right and blowing people off the ball. That was a nice drive. And we scored 3 rushing touchdowns against a team that hadn't given up a single one in 33 FRICKEN quarters.

GERG! Continues to deliver even though he only has patchwork talent. Let's see what he can do with a couple more recruiting classes.